Sadie Frost inspires Jemima French to join her on the wagon

Jemima French has followed in Sadie Frost's teetotal footsteps because she fears premature ageing.

Sadie Frost and Jemima French
Photo: REX FEATURES

By Tim Walker

6:28AM BST 15 Jul 2010

Once a leading member of the notorious "Primrose Hill set", Sadie Frost, the former wife of the actor Jude Law, is now so clean-living that she is inspiring her friends to pursue her abstemious lifestyle.

Jemima French, who runs the fashion label Frost French with the 45 year-old has also given up alcohol. "I don't drink anymore," says French, 44.

"I don't want to get old, and drinking really makes you old. I just got fed up of feeling slightly groggy in the morning when I went out and had too many drinks."

French, who is supporting the Lipton Infusions Drink Gorgeous, Look Gorgeous campaign, adds: "Now, I can go out until two or three in the morning and leap out of bed the next day and feel great."

London's increasingly belligerent foxes managed to put a downer even on Lady Annabel Goldsmith's summer party at Ormeley Lodge in south-west London.

"I used to have four Buff Orpingtons, but now I have three," she told Mandrake, sadly, of the breed of fluffy hens she keeps in her grounds. "I've got them safely in a pen now, but I've been told it looks like a prison camp, so I'm going to open it out and give them more of a run."

This will involve moving a statue of a gorilla and its baby (the late zoo owner John Aspinall was one of her best friends) and relocating the pen to a spot close to a life-size rhinoceros.

Guests at the event included Sir David Frost, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and Richard E Grant (a man who, despite his fearsome reputation, turned out to be an absolute poppet).

Sir Michael Darrington's wedding roll

Often photographed shovelling short-crust pastry into his mouth during his 24 years as the chief executive of Greggs, the bakers, Sir Michael Darrington can look forward to even more appetising fare shortly.

The businessman's wife, Paula, tells Mandrake that a wedding breakfast will soon be prepared for their son Jonathan, 35, who is to marry Nicola Vineer, 26.

"We are delighted," she says. Her ladyship's husband once remarked, sagely: "It's fine to have a jam doughnut and a sausage roll a few days a week, as long as it's part of a healthy diet."